Victoria Sackville-West

Making Cider Poem by Victoria Sackville-West

I saw within the wheelwright’s shedThe big round cartwheels, blue and red;A plough with blunted share;A blue tin jug; a broken chair;And paint in trial patchwork squareSlapping up against the wall;The lumber of the wheelwright’s trade,And tools on benches neatly laid,The brace, the adze, the awl;

And framed within the latticed-panes,Above the cluttered sill,Saw rooks upon the stubble hillSeeking forgotten grains;

And all the air was sweet and shrillWith juice of apples heaped in skips,Fermenting, rotten, soft and bruise,And all the yard was strewn with pips,Discarded pulp, and wrung-out oozeThat ducks with rummaging flat billSearched through beside the cider-pressTo gobble in their greediness.

The young men strained upon the crankTo wring the last reluctant inch.They laughed together, fair and frank,And threw their loins across the winch.

A holiday from field and dung,From plough and harrow, scythe and spade,To dabble in another trade,The crush the pippins in the slats,And see that in the little vatsAn extra pint was wring;While round about the worthies stoodProfuse in comment, praise or blame,Content the press should be of wood,Advising rum, decrying wheat,And black strong sugar makes it sweet,But still resolved, with maundering tongue,That cider could not be the sameAs once when they were young;But still the young contemptuous menLaughed kindly at their old conceit,And strained upon the crank again.

Now barrels ranged in portly lineMature through winter’s sleep,Aping the leisured sloths of wineThat dreams of Tiber or the Rhine,Mellowing slow and deep;But keen and cold the northern nightsSharpen the quiet yard.And sharp like no rich southern wineThe tang of cider bites;For here the splintered stars and hardHold England in a frosty guard.Orion and PleiadesAbove the wheelwright’s shed.And Sirius resting on the treesWhile all the village snores abed.